“This would be a nice day in Oregon,” said Mountain Pointe
senior Brandon Hansen after the opening round of the Dobson Mustang
Soccer Classic at Mesa Red Mountain Park.

The Pride boys soccer midfielder/forward might as well get used
to it.

This time next year Hansen will be playing soccer for the Oregon
State Beavers.

After playing on the Pride varsity for the past four years,
Hansen had been courted by other schools but found what he liked in
the PAC-10 school in Corvallis.

“I really liked everything about it,” Hansen said. “It just all
came together: the school, coaches, team, division, everything.
Oregon State was the best fit for me and I’m happy to be able to go
there.”

Mountain Pointe’s boys soccer program has alumni spread out
around the country, but not in the PAC-10.

“I guess I won’t have a lot of people to ask advice,” Hansen
said, “but it will be a new experience and it will be fun.”

The Beavers will likely have Hansen playing as an attacking
midfielder or forward.

He’s familiar with both positions and has been one of the team’s
leading scorers in his sophomore and junior seasons.

“It’s been pretty much like that since my freshman year,” he
explained. “We had Spencer Thompson and John Kierstead, but since
they graduated we were left with a hole and I’ve been trying to
fill their shoes for the past three years.”

Thompson is a junior at the University of California-Irvine and
Kierstead also continued his soccer career in college. Kierstead
did not continue to play in college and is attending the University
of Arizona, where he intends to go into medical school.

Mountain Pointe coach Brian Sabato admits he has leaned on
Hansen to put the ball in the back of the net for the past three
seasons.

“We’ve relied on him to score some goals and this year we’ll
take any help we can get,” Sabato said. “Naturally, he’s an
attacking midfielder, but we can put him at center midfield or
forward. He can pretty much play anywhere.”

Hansen rarely leaves the field.

“I play a lot because I play two positions and I like them
both,” he added. “As a center midfielder I like to keep the flow of
the game going, but I like to score goals, too.”

Hansen, who has been playing since he was 5, has been a team
captain since he was a junior.

He has, what Sabato calls, “soccer sense.”

“His technical ability on the ball and his understanding of the
game make him such a good player,” Sabato said.

Each season Hansen has added to that soccer knowledge.

“I guess it’s natural to get better every year,” he said. “But
it does seem to get easier just because of the experience.”